Labor-backed bills win R.I. Senate approval

Katherine Gregg Journal Political Writer kathyprojo

Thursday

May 2, 2019 at 12:20 PMMay 2, 2019 at 12:20 PM

Rhode Island's public employee unions scored a grand slam at the State House Wednesday when the Senate approved a package of bills vehemently opposed by city and town leaders who say they will leave them defenseless if and when the economy sinks and they have no leverage to bring the unions to the negotiating table.

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island's public employee unions scored a grand slam at the State House Wednesday when the Senate approved a package of union-backed bills vehemently opposed by city and town leaders who say they will leave them defenseless if and when the economy sinks — health-care costs soar — and they have no leverage to bring the unions to the negotiating table.

In a series of largely party-line votes, the Democrat-dominated Senate approved bills to: indefinitely extend the key terms — namely, pay and benefits — of expired police, fire, municipal employee and teachers contracts until the two sides agree to a replacement contract; and to mandate the payment of time-and-a-half to firefighters after an "average" 42-hour week. By way of comparison, the federal overtime threshold is 53 hours.

The unions openly acknowledge the bills are all aimed at discouraging cities and towns from ever again unilaterally cutting pay, increasing health-care contributions and imposing what they view as disruptive work shifts on public employees, as happened in a handful of communities during past contract disputes.

"Today in this chamber we can make sure no other community in Rhode Island faces what we faced in East Providence,'' said Sen. Valarie Lawson, recounting the "devastating'' impact of a unilateral 4.73 percent salary cut and a stepped up co-share for health coverage during a bitter contract war a decade ago in the district where she lives and teaches high school social studies.

"They never bargained in good faith. Nor was it their intent,'' said Lawson, who doubles as the paid vice president of one of the two big teacher unions pushing for the legislation: the National Education Association of Rhode Island.

"It demoralized our teachers,'' she told Senate colleagues. "One of the greatest concerns for our teachers was: the fear of the unknown. What were they facing next? At one point, while working without a contract, the School Committee threatened to implement a pay-for-performance system in addition to the previous cuts they had made to our salary."

One after another, the outnumbered opponents of the continuing-contract legislation stressed they were "not-anti-union" but rather "pro-taxpayer.''

"I believe we must must balance what is good for unions with what is good for taxpayers,'' said Sen. Donna Nesselbush of Pawtucket, the only Democrat who broke ranks to vote against most of the contract-continuation bills. "My mayor is vehemently opposed to this bill,'' she said. "All of our mayors ... unanimously oppose this bill."

"There are have(s) and have-not(s),'' she said. "And I have been approached by constituents who say, you know: 'I don't have those benefits' ... [who] are being asked in their property taxes to pay for others who oftentimes are already better paid and better compensated."

"The scales are already weighted against the taxpayers," echoed Republican Sen. Gordon Rogers of Foster. "We keep shutting all these doors for the municipalities ... The last door that’s left is the bankruptcy door ... One bill may not cause a bankruptcy, but collectively, death by a hundred slashes is still death."

But Sen. Frank Lombardi, D-Cranston, said he has heard no one make a convincing case there is any "cause and effect ... between a fiscal disaster and an evergreen clause here."

The firefighter overtime bill is also aimed at discouraging cities and towns from attempting to extend hours without paying time-and-a-half after an average 42-hour work week, in an eight-week stretch. In Providence that translates into: One 24-hour overnight shift; two days off; another 24 hour shift; four days off. The city's aborted attempt to extend the hours, mid-contract, ended up in an expensive legal fight.

Only three fire districts do not already have 42-hour overtime threshold, including Tiverton, which finalized a new firefighter contract earlier this week with a 48-hour threshold.

“It’s an issue of fundamental fairness,'' said Lombardi, dismissing "sky is falling'' alarmists.

Sen. Mark McKenney, D-Warwick, responded: "I have friends who are firefighters. I’ve heard from them. They want these bills passed. If I was a firefighter, I would want these bills passed. I’d want the best deal that I could get. I would want the state to mandate this and I’d like to take it out of the bargaining process.”

But “I have friends too who are not firefighters,'' McKenney said. "And I have heard from them. And they are saying: 'We are paying higher and higher taxes. Property taxes are going through the roof. They’re saying 'enough already.'”

“This state and my city of Warwick are facing serious financial problems,'' he said. "We are paying today ... quite frankly, for what politicians did many years ago …. We shouldn’t be digging any more holes."

The bills now go to the House, which earlier passed its own versions of several of the union bills the Senate voted on Wednesday.

The big unknown: whether Gov. Gina Raimondo — who vetoed an earlier version of the bill in 2017 — will do so again. Reelected last year with endorsements from NEARI and other unions, the term-limited Raimondo is now "leaning toward" signing the contract continuation legislation, but "she will not make a final determination until she sits down with the mayors and has a chance to review the final version of the bill if and when it comes to her desk," her spokesman Josh Block said Wednesday.

The 2017 legislation would have extended "programs regardless of need or effectiveness ... [kept] unnecessary positions ... and forced compliance with severely outdated practices," Block said. "Provisions such as these would not be indefinitely extended under this year’s proposal."

Raimondo has not directly responded, however, to the mayors' and town managers' concerns about her own stated 2017 worry: indefinitely locking in unaffordable wages and benefits.

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